could but assent to this, for doctors, unfortunately for their comfort, listen to many confessions of sadness and unrighteousness in marital relations, and some of them come from sources which the world would little dream of.

The lady added: "I have an intimate friend, a few years younger than myself, who married a minister, and one who stands high in the denomination of which he is a member. They have had seven children, almost as fast as it is possible to have them, and the wife is a broken-down woman, spiritless and unhappy, a common drudge at an age when she should be full of life and joy, were things as they should be. One remark shows the feeling which this state of affairs has engendered. When I asked her why her husband allowed such a state of things to exist, she said, 'He doesn't care,' and she said it with such a dispirited and utterly discouraged air that my heart ached for her."

When will a brighter day dawn for woman and for man in these things? When our young people are trained to see these great questions in the light of God's purposes and have strength of character sufficient to make them conquerors over the false opinions of the world, the temptations of the flesh, and the wiles of the devil.

Ignorance and misconception are at the bottom of all that is wrong in the marital relation. No loving husband would for a moment allow himself to yield to the demands of his lower nature did he consider and appreciate rightly all that it meant to his wife, his unborn children and to the generations to come.

There is such an incompatibility in the life of the man of high and noble instincts, of generous nature, and lofty aspirations, in so pandering to the lustful, so making provisions for the flesh, and at such terrible cost to the one whom he should and does hold most dear!

Let us pray and work that a brighter day may dawn speedily, when the marital relation shall be freed from all that is gross and sensual, and shall be the synonym for purity, truth, and righteousness.

In the Greek, the word for man-and this is the generic term, comprehending womanmeans a being with his face turned upward. When we are looking upward our lives will be all the time tending upward, and we shall draw our inspiration from Him who lives above and ever leads His children into paths of truth and purity.

CHAPTER VIII.

PREPARATION FOR MOTHERHOOD.

Motherhood the Glory of Womanhood.-Maternity Natural and Productive of Health.-Prevalence of Knowledge of Methods Used to Prevent Conception. Mothers Should Prepare Their Daughters for Maternity.-Motherhood the Sanction for Wife hood.-Effect of Fixed Habits of Mother upon Offspring.-Adjustment of Clothing to Expectant Motherhood.-Importance of Proper Exercise. The Sitz Bath.-Threatened Miscarriages.Effects of Environment upon the Unborn.-Why Italian Children Resemble the Madonnas.-The Child the Expression of the Mother's Thoughts.The Five Stages of Prenatal Culture Stated and Illustrated. The Mother of the Wesleys.-The Child the Heir and Expression of the Mother's Thought and Life.

"Oh in woman how Mighty is the love of offspring: ere

Unto her wandering, untaught mind, unfolds
The mystery that is half divine, half human,
Of life, of birth, the love of unborn souls
Within her, and the mother yearning creeps
Through her warm heart, and stirs its hidden deeps
And grows and strengthens with each riper year."
-ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

"MOTHERHOOD is not a remote contingency, but the common duty and the common glory of womanhood."

"They should know that the less children and the more servants in the home, the less health and happiness, other things being equal. It is natural for women to bear children, and unnatural to evade this function; the everlastingly recurrent congestion of the generative organs, month after month, year in and year out, without the rest of generation, promotes a true disease of these organs, and favors all the various growths which afflict so large a proportion of our women."

With the prevailing ignorance, which has been the heritage of our daughters for so many generations, no thought of preparation for motherhood has exercised them. On the other hand, much the larger majority of our young women come to the marriage altar, far better informed in the methods of preventing conception, or producing abortion after conception has really taken place, than of any proper preparation for motherhood. Who are their teachers? Many who should blush with shame that they lend their influence to this nefarious business; this education in invalidism, murder and suicide. Many, who should be the teachers in truth and pu

rity. Mothers, mothers-in-law, sisters, aunts, "friends," young matrons, who have become adepts in the business, and whose punishment has not yet overtaken them—all these, and many more. Christians? Yes, professing Christians; but who would hardly like to have their advice in these things written along side of their confession of faith in the records of the church. They should remember that it is written in a larger book than that of a church, and written so large that all the world can read it by and by.

In the first steps of preparation for motherhood, the mother should be the teacher. That so few mothers are capable of teaching their daughters as they should, emphasizes the need of right teaching along these lines, and the necessity of plain talks with mothers and daughters.

From a recent paper I clipped the following: "There is a story going the rounds, that the last convention of the National Mothers' Congress, was not entirely successful, owing to the fact, that only about one out of every ten delegates was even married. Since the object of the organization is the better care, discipline and rearing of the young, it has been determined that every delegate to the convention next month, must